VI The Committee's Agent

It was a narrow, ill-ventilated place, with but one barred window
that gave on the courtyard. An evil-smelling lamp hung by a chain
from the grimy ceiling, and in a corner of the room a tiny iron
stove shed more unpleasant vapour than warm glow around.

There was but little furniture: two or three chairs, a table which
was littered with papers, and a corner-cupboard--the open doors of
which revealed a miscellaneous collection--bundles of papers, a
tin saucepan, a piece of cold sausage, and a couple of pistols.
The fumes of stale tobacco-smoke hovered in the air, and mingled
most unpleasantly with those of the lamp above, and of the mildew
that penetrated through the walls just below the roof.

Heron pointed to one of the chairs, and then sat down on the
other, close to the table, on which he rested his elbow. He picked
up a short-stemmed pipe, which he had evidently laid aside at the
sound of the bell, and having taken several deliberate long-drawn
puffs from it, he said abruptly:

"Well, what is it now?"

In the meanwhile de Batz had made himself as much at home in this
uncomfortable room as he possibly could. He had deposited his hat
and cloak on one rickety rush-bottomed chair, and drawn another
close to the fire. He sat down with one leg crossed over the
other, his podgy be-ringed hand wandering with loving gentleness
down the length of his shapely calf.

He was nothing if not complacent, and his complacency seemed
highly to irritate his friend Heron.

We have hundreds more books for your enjoyment. Read them all!

"Well, what is it?" reiterated the latter, drawing his visitor's
attention roughly to himself by banging his fist on the table.
"Out with it! What do you want? Why have you come at this hour
of the night to compromise me, I suppose--bring your own d--d neck
and mine into the same noose--what?"

"Easy, easy, my friend," responded de Batz imperturbably; "waste
not so much time in idle talk. Why do I usually come to see you?
Surely you have had no cause to complain hitherto of the
unprofitableness of my visits to you?"

"They will have to be still more profitable to me in the future,"
growled the other across the table. "I have more power now."

"I know you have," said de Batz suavely. "The new decree? What?
You may denounce whom you please, search whom you please, arrest
whom you please, and send whom you please to the Supreme Tribunal
without giving them the slightest chance of escape."

"Is it in order to tell me all this that you have come to see me
at this hour of the night?" queried Heron with a sneer.

"No; I came at this hour of the night because I surmised that in
the future you and your hell-hounds would be so busy all day
'beating up game for the guillotine' that the only time you would
have at the disposal of your friends would be the late hours of
the night. I saw you at the theatre a couple of hours ago, friend
Heron; I didn't think to find you yet abed."